Tessa Stafford and her five-year-old daughter Isabel are driving on a lonesome road when the big skies of Montana decide to dump rain. This happens in August but the little family is destined to have a CHRISTMAS AT PAINTED PONY CREEK. Stuck on the roadside, Tessa is found by the chief of police, Melba Summers. They can’t turn down a good offer of a lift to somewhere warm and dry.

I like that Tessa gradually reveals her story through conversations, memories, and flashbacks rather than a long infodump at the start. She’s a private person who is not on the run, but on the move, to escape Isabel’s grandmother (actually her parents didn’t marry, but if they had, Marjory Laughlin would be Tessa’s stepmother-in-law), who is harassing them,. Painted Pony Creek seems like a good place to get away from it all; somewhere that Tessa won’t be stalked on social media or sent threats.

This is my first time visiting town, but it is the fourth book in the Painted Pony Creek series. The locals are hospitable, and we see Thanksgiving and early snow as the year winds to a close. Jesse McKettrick is one of the pleasant local men, a lawyer by training who left that life and is working on constructing a faux-Western street. This will be used for tourism and film sets. I must say they are inventive here in Montana. Working in Bailey’s restaurant as a waitress gives Tessa a chance to get to know everyone and she feels properly welcome. But she doesn’t feel safe. Marjory Laughlin will find out where she is, and with oodles of money, she will keep scheming to take Isobel away from the young single mom.  

This contemporary romance doesn’t contain too many surprises, but the tale is well managed to factor in protecting a child. Overall we see a Cinderella theme; Tessa doesn’t feel her status is worth very much, but a Christmas in her new town might change that view.  

CHRISTMAS AT PAINTED PONY CREEK by bestselling western romance author Linda Lael Miller, is chilling and warming at the same time, a seasonal wish for home, hearth and family.  I enjoyed meeting the good neighbours and seeing their lifestyles, and I look forward to the next book which will keep exploring the new, oldtime stage town.